Thursday Jul 20th, 2017

The Baltimore City Health Department has received a $150,000 grant to work with the owners of local “corner stores” to stock and sell healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grain foods and low-fat milk.

The two-year grant from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission will be used to add 40 stores to the Baltimarket Healthy Stores Program, which now has 17 retailers participating. The health department will also hire 40 young people to serve as nutrition educators and supply the stores with advertising materials to promote the program. The program was started in 2014 with the goal of providing healthy food options to those living in so-called food deserts, or places with few traditional grocery stores.

Several weeks ago, President Trump stated that the opioid crisis was a “national emergency.” To many of us in public health, it was a confusing statement. Just a few days earlier, the president and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price stated that they would not declare a state of emergency, claiming that emergencies are time-bound and resource-finite situations.

As an emergency physician and Commissioner of Health in Baltimore City — where approximately two people a day die from overdose — I can tell you that is not the case. Addiction is a disease, treatment exists and communities around the country are succeeding in fighting the epidemic.

The Trump administration’s decision to cut short a grant program that would have spent $214 million to support teen pregnancy prevention programs will have far-reaching consequences in cities across the United States, including Baltimore. After the program ends next June, the city will lose the equivalent of $3.5 million in funding for a variety of programs aimed at curtailing unintended teen pregnancies. Another $880,000 grant funds research at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health to evaluate a program to reduce sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy among American Indian teens, City Health Commissioner Leana Wen called the decision shocking and “unprecedented.” “We have not ever received a cut to an existing program without explanation, and when the funds were readily available,” she said.